Forums » Elder Scrolls

What difficulty do you play Skyrim on?

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:04 PM EDT

    After installing patch 1.9 I played Skyrim on Legendary difficulty and have formed a somewhat mixed opinion on it. The enemies surely hit harder and it makes the combat more tense. However the lowered player damage makes the fights with stronger enemies long and tedious. I don't like the fact that on that difficulty almost any NPC will do more damage with the same gear as you. So I'd like to ask have you faced the same problem and what difficulty do you enjoy playing Skyrim on altogether?

    • 7 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:15 PM EDT

    I haven't tried Legendary yet, but am tentatively excited to do so. I've played on Master a lot recently.

    I wish there was a difficulty setting/mod that made the entire game play like Master at end-game for me: I can kill humanoids and animals with a few good swings, but they can return the favor if I let them touch me. Sort of a "realistic mode", where a sword blow is a sword blow is a sword blow, instead of trying to make "You do .05 damage, and enemies do 3000x damage" feel anything but tedious.

    • 106 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:22 PM EDT

    I agree. When I play on master, I focus on the damage I do first, because I like a fair playing field where I can die in a few hits, but so can they. After a while though, later in levels master is really easy

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:29 PM EDT

    The realistic mode will be nearly impossible to make, they'll need to check the armor damage negation, exposed points, armor condition, blocking...

    I just think the whole "lower player damage" thing is ridiculous! If they've made the "You do x1 damage, and enemies do x5 damage" mode it would've been far more interesting. Now if you dn't have crazy daedric bow with 800 damage, you have to circle around enemy filling him with arrows for 20 minutes to kill him.

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:30 PM EDT

    That's the point, you need to have good smithing and enchanting to have a weapon that does decent amount of damage, and no-crafting characters are at a big disadvantage here.

    • 7 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:33 PM EDT

    You're right, a truly realistic mode is just a distant dream.

    That "you do x1 damage, but enemies do xMore" isn't a bad idea, though. I wonder if there's a way to tweak that with the CK.

    • 291 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:33 PM EDT

    Yes x1000.  That's how I feel.  Less player damage does not mean greater difficulty.  Greater NPC damage means greater difficulty.

    • 291 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:35 PM EDT

    There are mods that do that.  Lots of combat balancing mods out there change how much damage NPCs do.  Skyrim Redone overhauls a lot of combat, damage, and item stats such that Expert is considered Master-level playing in terms of difficulty.

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:36 PM EDT

    There is actually a mod for that on Nexus. Think it's called "Custom Difficulty", there is an option for x1 player damage and x4 NPC damage.

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:37 PM EDT

    Just think, Legendary difficulty makes player do 1/4 damage! So if you have the crazy 800 damage bow from the example you'll still need two shots to kill level 19 Bandit Highwayman 

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 5:45 PM EDT

    What about you @Kyrielle? Do you play on highest difficulty? Or the mods make the difficulty for you 

    • 291 posts
    March 31, 2013 6:18 PM EDT

    I play on Master.  I don't have anything that particularly makes the game more difficult (currently using ACE, not SkyRe).  Sometimes I have problems, but it's not too bad.  About the only thing that can cause trouble are boss fights, which is about how it should be. :D

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 6:25 PM EDT

    Yeah I enjoyed Master but this Legendary is a pain!  You know I've been using Deadly Combat for some time, and really enjoyed it. It has some neat features like timed blocking and warding (reflecting Fus Ro Dah back to the draugr was very fun) 

  • March 31, 2013 6:30 PM EDT

    Adept - I don't like to pull punches when it comes to my damage.

    • 291 posts
    March 31, 2013 6:34 PM EDT

    ;)  Well, I haven't installed any other combat mods because I'm about level 44 and doing so causes tremendous problems, especially when I have other overhaul mods already present.  

    My next playthrough will definitely increase the combat difficulty among other things.  I plan to use a couple of followers and see how high I can crank up the difficulty before things become impossible!

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 6:40 PM EDT

    Just watch for the traps if you play DiD. I've lost my last character to a BEAR TRAP and I don't have any difficulty modifying mods installed! 

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 6:41 PM EDT

    It seems the most optimal difficulty if you're not overpowering your character with crafting skills

    • 81 posts
    March 31, 2013 6:51 PM EDT
    It depends on what I'm doing. If I'm visiting locations for my stories then I'll put it on novice because I usually want to get to my destination as fast as possible. With my DiD character I play on master.
  • March 31, 2013 6:55 PM EDT

    Master, only difficulty I ever play on, on all games I set it to the hardest difficulty :P

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 6:57 PM EDT

    Me too, always on hardest  Some games unlock higher difficulties when you finish them, I play on those too  It's just Skyrim's difficulty system makes me think that the game will be more enjoyable on Adept.

    • 118 posts
    March 31, 2013 7:29 PM EDT

    Starting a new archer on legendary has been a chore, not enjoying it at all.  My noobish hunting bow and iron arrows, I'm doing something like 5 damage per shot and the level 9 bandit thug has over 200 health...it's crap basically.  My poisons are now worthless so there's basically no use even training alchemy any more and if I happen to run across a mage, they can heal themselves faster than I can do damage (and screw trolls on legendary lol).

    Difficulty can add a lot to a game (extra mobs, more traps, etc) but this damage slider that makes almost all forms of combat outside of melee virtually worthless at the beginning of the game is just sucking the fun out of skyrim for me.  At least in heavy armor and a shield you can probably survive a 1v1 fight but in basic hide armour if I take any hits I'm toast.  Almost forced to train all of the crafting skills immediately to even have much of a chance.

    P.S.

    I can't imagine trying to start a destruction mage character on legendary, you'd have just enough magicka to piss off your enemy but that's about it.

    • 9 posts
    March 31, 2013 7:44 PM EDT

    I've played several playthroughs on master and at a high level I still find it too easy. I'm waiting for the latest update for xbox so I can play on legendary. Hopefully, it will make the game a real challenge without having to run around in low level gear at level 50+.

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 7:55 PM EDT

    Yeah exactly. At the start of the game you need to waste a lot of arrows if you want to clear say a mine full of bandits. And hagravens are the worst, when you finally manage to make decent damage the just heal themselves to almost full health  I'm actually running a pacifist character now, just not to bother killing enemies 

    • 1483 posts
    March 31, 2013 7:56 PM EDT

    It's easy when you get high level smithed and enchanted gear. But on the lower levels it's difficult to say the least.

    • 856 posts
    March 31, 2013 8:37 PM EDT

    I was, until recently, playing master ironman, but I am currently trying legendary ironman.  I have been considering lowering the difficulty for a more relaxed playing style, but I want to finish my current character first.